Sarah Rice/For The Star-LedgerPaul Bergrin, shown in this file photo, is charged with murder and conspiracy in the death of an FBI informant. He is on trial in federal court in Newark.

NEWARK — Paul Bergrin, the once-prominent defense lawyer on trial in a federal court on murder charges, powered forward this morning during the third day of his detailed and grueling cross-examination of key prosecution witness Anthony Young.

Bergrin, 55, who once represented rap stars, drug kingpins, and U.S. soldiers in Iraq, is defending himself in a high-profile trial playing out in Newark in which he’s accused of orchestrating the 2004 street-murder of government informant Kemo Deshawn McCray, then 30. Prosecutors say Bergrin, in effect, ordered McCray’s killing when he allegedly told associates in a violent Newark gang the words, “No Kemo, no case,” – and allegedly similar other words – when he was representing one of the gang’s associates, William Baskerville, on cocaine charges.

Young, 37, has confessed to shooting MccCray dead on a Newark street on March 2, 2004, and is considered the most central witness to testify against Bergrin in the trial, which is now in its third week. But while Young is currently serving a 30-year sentence for the killing of McCray, Bergrin has argued that, in fact, Young was not the triggerman who shot McCray and he is thus lying on the stand.

Bergrin also contends other government witnesses are lying against him in order to win lesser sentences for crimes they’ve committed.

Using questions sometimes laced with sarcasm, and often said in a loud, berating and commanding tone, Bergrin sought this morning to point out inconsistencies in details Young has given during testimony at trials -- or has given to the FBI over the years -- concerning his role in the killing of McCray.

In one exchange, Bergrin tried to point out -- through his questions -- that Young had allegedly said in the past that a getaway car near the scene of the murder was “facing west.” Bergrin said, through questions, that Young had changed his story later to say that the victim was “facing west,” not the car.

“Will you admit you were lying … when you said the car was facing west?” Bergrin asked Young. And Bergrin continued, “You knew that it never referred to the fact of the car … it was Kemo facing west!”

Young replied, “I’ve been saying for years that Kemo was facing east, and he spun west (upon getting shot).”

Moments later, U.S. District Judge William Martini stepped in – as he has done regularly when exchanges between Bergrin and Young have become too heated or too drawn out – and worked to clarify the point some for the jury.

Martini read from one FBI report in which Young had apparently told the FBI that McCray had, in fact, been spun around by the shooter, who subsequently shot Young -- not that McCray was spun around by the force of gunshots themselves.